2015

ITAM and ITSM Integration Review

This Group Test explores the relationship between the IT management disciplines of IT Asset Management (ITAM) and IT Service Management (ITSM).

Our remit was to explore the opportunities for managing assets and interacting with ITAM teams whilst maintaining everyday ITSM processes. In particular we were looking to review ITSM tools that offer ITAM functionality or integrate with tools that do – or ITAM tools that provide value to ITSM lifecycles.

ITAM and ITSM Integration 2015 Best in Class:

Matrix42: “Matrix42 is the closest toolset manufacturer we’ve seen to be able to realize the full ITAM and ITSM vision from one platform. The solution offers both strong ITSM capabilities (verified for eight ITIL processes via a modern interface) whilst also offering depth of datacentre SAM coverage (identifying options and packs enabled for Oracle database).”

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Self Service Review

‘In short, Self Service is now the entry point towards great efficiency and as a means of transformation and collaboration. It is an opportunity for IT departments to reverse their fortunes and improve their image and effectiveness, by automating repeatable and manual processes, thereby affording more time for strategy and customer engagement.’

LANDESK: ‘Gain all the ITSM functionality you need—problem, change and release management, configuration management, incident management, issue tracking, and more. Sustain an enterprise-class service management operation in a solution that’s easy to use and own.’

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2014

Proactive Problem Management Review

“Most of us are familiar with the concept of problem management whether we are practicing it within our organisation or not. The objective is to minimise both the number and severity of incidents and potential problems to the business by investigating the root cause of issues rather than concentrating on finding the cure.”

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Cherwell, Samanage, ServiceNow and TOPdesk reviewed for their capabilities and approach to delivering services outside the IT department

Outside IT

This is a review of how IT service management (ITSM) tools might be used beyond the IT department.

It explores how traditional ITSM tools, typically used for IT service and support, can be used for broader operation throughout the business such as underpinning internal business processes and handling non-IT business requests.

Change, Configuration and Release

“The only thing constant in life is change, and this is never truer than in an IT organisation.

In order to get a handle on the myriad of modifications and developments occurring within IT many organisations turn to frameworks, such as ITIL, for guidance on best practice. Change, Configuration and Release Management are three processes that group together favourably and are a valuable continuance for businesses unsure where to progress following successful adoption of Incident, and in some cases Problem Management.”

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2013

Integrations

“It is all too easy, when looking at ITSM tools, to focus on perhaps the bread and butter functionality that we have all come to know, love and sometimes stumble over in implementation. Sometimes it seems a secondary concern as to how the information gets there in the first place.

From niche products that offer very succinct areas of integration to complement the service management function to the more established tool bases that recognise that increasingly they are becoming but one cog in an IT service chain – we take a look at an extensive range of tools and their integration points within IT Service Management.”

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Knowledge Management

“‘Knowledge Management’ (in the ITSM context) doesn’t really have a specific product sector. This tends to be an application of one or more product areas to support the process of knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. E.g. a useful ‘Knowledge Management’ solution could easily be SharePoint, or an intranet portal.

Knowledge Management 2013 Best in Class:

ITinvolve: “ITinvolve’s product is an innovative and interesting option for those wanting to really develop their Service Management using knowledge in an intuitive and new way, based on ‘social’ interaction.”

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Service Catalogue

“‘Service Catalogue’ market is a niche sub-set of the IT Service Management (ITSM) Software market, which has seen considerable interest and growth in recent years.

Whilst ‘Service Catalogue” can be given a clear definition, the term can be and often is used to cover a number of functional and strategic approaches that stretch from fairly low-level request fulfilment to strategic Service Design and Strategy.

This approach varies because there are several different components that can be described as ‘Service Catalogue” – from ‘front-end’ portal to ‘back-end’ workflow and high-level business views of services. There are also potentially a number of different inputs and outputs – and types of document – that can be described as part of the ‘Service Catalogue’.”

Service Catalogue 2013 Best in Class:

Axios Systems: “Axios is an established vendor with a track record in the ITSM market. The Service Catalogue product is a relatively recent addition, now seamlessly integrated into the wider ITSM product functionality.The standard interface is clean, uncluttered and intuitive, and in many cases could be used Out of the Box (OOTB).”

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Incident and Problem Management

“Incident and Problem Management are such mainstays of an ITSM tool; it is quite hard to find a way to dig through the differentiators. The process and the related workflows themselves are so seemingly straight forward, are there really any ways to improve?

This review bought out nuances and features to help make a couple of mature processes look exciting again. These tools do more than just provide a mechanism to move an incident or a problem from A to B. It looks to improve the lifecycle, and practice the points of the Process Certification that vendors put themselves through.”

Incident and Problem Management 2013 Best in Class:

TOPDESK: “The inclusion of the Kanban-style resourcing board, but also the way in which tasks can be placed and moved about really made this stand out, in terms of the way that innovation within a tool can really make processes less cumbersome.”

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2012

Request Fulfilment

“The best place to start was the End User – how they come into contact with the ITSM beast in as seamless a way as possible to their experience. Although the guts of the process involves pushing records from group to group before closure, the ways in which our participating vendors get you to the finish line was at times quite varied.

Do end users care about all the steps along the way regarding their requests? Or do they just want to see an end date by when they can expect a shiny new smartphone to land at their desk?”

Request Fulfilment 2012 Best in Class:

Cherwell Software: “I was an IT Architect, specialising in ITSM, and the Pareto 80/20 rule was my mantra in my former life. Cherwell’s approach to (re)use their expertise and develop a depth of standard requests covering pretty much most details that are required makes them the most comprehensive offering in this review.”